Surveillance
by Inusagi
Summary: It's not stalking. It's surveillance. Post Cyberwoman. Day 25 of the July TW Oneshot challenge (Posted late). M for reasons!


Disclaimer: Not mine!

*.*.*

When Toshiko asked why my eyes followed him around the Hub, I told her I just couldn't trust him anymore.

I didn't mention the extra CCTV cameras I'd installed at our base, in the Archives and in the Tourist office. I didn't mention the cameras I'd installed in his flat, in those dark hours that he'd been so hysterical that Owen was forced to sedate him. I didn't mention that I knew the serial numbers for all of the street cameras in the estate he lived in, by the shop that supplied his coffee beans, by his dry cleaner's, his Tesco's, the pub he went to on Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday nights.

I suspect she knew anyway. It was her job to know.

I didn't care. Whatever was on Tosh's mind, whatever suspicions she had…I just didn't care. I knew Tosh. I understood her.

I don't understand Ianto.

I thought, for months, that I did. I thought I had him figured out. Just some kid who liked to play dress-up with his Daddy's suits and play at James Bond. Or Alfred Pennyworth. Someone. But either way, just a little boy too big for his britches and too young to know who he was turning himself into. Too young to know what he wanted, really.

Innocent.

Curious.

Inexperienced.

It ate at me, how thoroughly he fooled me. In my Time Agency days, I'd been trained in deception. Later, I was a conman. It was something I've never quite shaken off. I'm suspicious and edgy by nature.

But _Ianto_, Ianto flew under my radar. He weaseled his way into my Hub, my bed with nothing but a few cute suits, coffee, and some innocent, teasing banter and then he'd made himself irreplaceable.

I should be furious. I should have put a bullet into his brain. I've killed men with a whole lot less provocation. At the very least, I should give him enough Retcon to set him up as a permanent resident of a mental hospital.

I didn't. I won't. There's some sick, masochistic part of me that _needs_ him. I need to know how he slipped the wool over my eyes. I need to know how he _thinks_, what—besides fucking Cyberman-girlfriend hybrids—motivates him.

I remind myself over and over, like a mantra. I spend every spare second watching Ianto. I watch him kip on an ancient, musty settee in the Archives between bits of action. I watch him decide between brands of flavoured syrups at the shops. I watch him change into coveralls and muck out Myfanwy's eyrie. Doing the filing. Offering up suggestions to cheeky old ladies in the Tourist office.

I remind myself over and over, when I watch him in his flat. It's not the…rawness of seeing him out of those suits he wears like armour when he's puttering about in jeans and a t-shirt. It's not his quiet, coiled grace when he makes himself bacon butties for dinner for the third night in a row. It's not how he sheds that prim and proper costume, with its perfect posture and stoic mask, the second he steps through the door or the way he lounges on his sofa with a shitty action movie and a bottle of ale, like every other boy his age.

I remind myself, but can't quite convince myself, when I see him lick his lips absently. I can see the wetness there, even on the grainy screen. I remember those lips around my cock, that tongue against my own and it drives me crazy.

I don't even bother trying to justify it when I watch him in his bed, green with the night-vision of the camera. The green frustrates me, because sometimes I can't think of anything other than the beautiful way his pale skin flushes when he's hot and bothered. It makes me feel cheated, watching him in that emerald glow, watching his slim hips arch up off the bed, watching his kissable, rosy lips part with that wordless, throaty groan I miss so much.

I don't think of his betrayal, his vow to watch me suffer someday, when I watch him touch himself. I don't think of anything except how badly my hands itch to touch him until he brings himself off and settles down into his pillow, satisfied in ways I haven't felt in weeks.

Then I remind myself that I need to understand him, but the truth is, I just need him.

*.*.*

A/N: That was so fun. The word was "obsession." Thanks for reading!


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